If Link is your favorite video game character you really don’t want to miss any Link cosplay at the event. Others at PAX are taking photos of Link cosplay they see and posting to instagram and twitter, but the real magic is when they post to /wheres.link on the local web. On /wheres.link you can find all the Link cosplay to be found at PAX and people are discussing and asking questions of the players. “Slash wheres Link” becauses a pop-up community for all the Link fans at PAX. By posting on /wheres.link all the Link cosplayers become…well… linked… and decide to get together for a massive Link photo shoot at noon on Saturday. This becomes an historic event and /wheres.link shoots to the top of the front page of the local web. Others at PAX see it at the top and get hyped about the photo shoot and being in the presence of 100+ Links.

This event wasn’t listed on the PAX website, or mobile app. It wasn’t on a schedule or attached to a twitter hashtag. It was the product of the type of organic community that can happen on the local web.

The first step to getting an instant community like this is to bring people together in the same place, which PAX has done. But the local web allows people to find others with similar interests and interact and organize. No app needed except a web browser. /wheres.link wasn’t in planning for months before PAX. It happened when one person posted a photo of Link to the url localweb.is/wheres.link. One Link fan browsing the local web noticed it and thought it was a cool idea so posted a photo too. Then another.

There is a sense of spontaneity and DIY attitude that is missing from our current online life. We have tons of apps with narrow and carefully curated experiences, but few opportunities to break out of those boxes and do what we want, whatever it is.

The local web as far as social media goes is a sandbox experience. It is what you make of it, whether that is for gathering 100 Links together into the most epic of photos… or any of the other 248 uses currently listed here.

And we are just getting started.

Note: PAX is not officially affiliated with the local web. The above is just an example of what could happen when the local web launches at PAX East in April.

We are building the local web and sharing a new way to use it each day.